Upcoming trips

May 2 to May 14 London vacation. We will be staying in the President Hotel, 56 - 60 Guildford Street, Russell Square, London, WC1N 1DB. Telephone : 020 7388 4443. Hope to see you all then.

theatre and Concerrts

February 20. At Christine’s prompting, and, offer to go to the box office for Family Circle tickets, we went to see the Met’s production of Parsifal–from 6.00 to 11.30! It is a modern production for the new generation of opera-goers (the ones that hoot and holler at slightest excuse to the detriment of all others’ listening concentration). Modern dress clashes horribly with the ancient myth of the story line, and state-of-the art lighting and staging effects enlighten and intrigue the semi gloom in which the action(?) of all three acts take place. I was pleasantly impressed with the singing cast and thought that it compared favorably with the greats of my younger days.

The new conductor was enthusiastically welcomed (The Levine era is now forgotten completely) but I thought the sound he produced from the orchestra did not quite evoke the agonizing pathos that I remembered.

February 21. Saw “Amy and the Orphans” at The Roundabout Theatre. It is a story of parents’ tussle with the agony of caring for a child with Down syndrome and the adult siblings’ efforts to atone for their parents’ weakness. Wonderfully convincing acting all round and written with great humour to counter the guilt dialalogue of the characters.

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Central Park was in glorious mood as I walked across to the west side at about eight o’clock on Thanksgiving morning. The long shadows of the rising sun made beautiful subjects and I was tempted to hang around to record the best of them. But, I was on my way to get pictures of the Macy balloons and I wanted to get to a strategic spot on Central Park West near 79th Street. As it happened, some one million people got there before me and best I could do was to stand on a wall 50 yards back from the front of the crowd. The wall, itself, quickly became populated with all manner of impatient humanity and one lady even propped her dog upon it at my feet so that he could enjoy the passing pageant. I girded my 300 mm lens and stood my ground for nearly two hours.

As you will see from the pictures, every one was shot from the same location. I tried to take advantage of the action that crossed my limited view. As each balloon figure came by, all the childen called out it’s name and went into ecstacies over it. It came to me that this was the essence of the parade’s popularity–although I knew none of them, the characters were part and parcel of the lives of modern children of all ages. This encouraged me to stay until the end of the parade to make sure that I got pictures of them all.

So, this post will have to be in two parts to accommodate the 40 plus shots. I hope you enjoy–don’t forget to click on each picture to see it full-screen. I deliberately did not crop most in order to facilitate this.